Netflix admitted throughout its earnings name on Thursday that it used generative AI to create VFX in The Eternaut, a Netflix unique from Argentina that was launched in April 2025. The corporate’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos mentioned that generative AI was particularly used for a VFX shot within the post-apocalyptic drama, however the transfer is one in every of a number of methods Netflix is embracing AI.
In line with Sarandos, the creators of The Eternaut needed to incorporate a shot of constructing collapsing in Buenos Aires, and quite than contract a studio of visible results artists to create the footage, Netflix used generative AI to create it. “Utilizing AI powered instruments, they have been in a position to obtain a tremendous outcome with outstanding velocity,” Sarandos shared in the course of the earnings name. “In truth, that VFX sequence was accomplished 10 instances quicker than it may have been accomplished with… conventional VFX instruments and workflows.”
The shot “simply would not have been possible for a present on that price range,” Sarandos says, as somebody with some enter on the present’s price range. The chief says that The Eternaut options “the very first Gen AI remaining footage to look on display in a Netflix unique sequence or movie.” Clearly, the present can be a prototype for a way Netflix can keep away from prices it would not wish to swallow sooner or later.
Employees within the leisure trade haven’t taken kindly to the usage of generative AI. Labor strikes — together with the lately resolved SAG-AFTRA online game strike — have made securing protections in opposition to AI a central challenge. The Oscar-nominated movie The Brutalist got here underneath hearth in 2024 for utilizing AI instruments throughout manufacturing. Past that, whether or not generative AI fashions have been illegally educated on copyrighted materials continues to be an open query.
Netflix plans to make use of generative AI to create advertisements for its ad-support Netflix subscription, and the corporate is reportedly testing a brand new search characteristic powered by OpenAI fashions. Utilizing generative AI in manufacturing may appear par for the course for a corporation that is already invested, but it surely may assist to normalize a expertise that many creatives stay actively in opposition to.